What’s this, an update to a blog?! Why yes, I’m going to rewind things 15 years and try to post something occasionally here, even if it’s only updates to this one entry. Mainly to give myself a routine, something constant for 2017, a year of change.

I really like that Steven Soderbergh keeps track of everything he’s watched or read throughout the year, so I’d like to do the same for 2017. I’ll copy his convention, which is as follows:

I recently signed up for a one-month Hulu Plus trial by linking my Facebook account. I had high hopes that Hulu would let me finally cancel cable, but so far I’ve been very disappointed. It looks like we’re still a long way from straightforward and logical TV and movie streaming options; the content owners and distributors really need to get their act together to make this less confusing and frustrating for the consumer.

Some shows are only available through the content owner’s website, mainly CBS: Amazing Race, The Good Wife

Some are only available with a paid subscription to another service, such as HBO and Showtime: United States of Tara, In Treatment, Treme, the list goes on and on here.

Some shows can’t be found at all: Homicide

I thought one benefit of Hulu Plus would be access to prior seasons, but several shows appear to only have the most recent season listed: Modern Family, Parenthood, Friday Night Lights

The Hulu Plus app on our Sony TV stinks. If you search for a show, there isn’t a way to modify or cancel that search, you have to restart the app. Once you find a show, it isn’t obvious which season and episode you’re opening. I haven’t been able to figure out how to play or queue an entire season, starting from the first episode.

As of now, I don’t see a good reason for continuing Hulu Plus at $7.99 a month. I’m standing on the sidelines and sticking with Netflix discs until the networks, studios, and distributors can all start pulling together.